In a heady cocktail of sheer stupidity and egregious incompetence, Oxford City Council and Oxford University managed to blot the Oxford landscape by building six five storey blocks on the edge of Port Meadow.

Unfortunately for functionaries at both organisations, people at The Save Port Meadow Campaign and the CPRE managed to raise enough cash to force a retrospective environmental impact assessment – that was released in October 2014 and includes the following:

“It is considered that the high adverse impact on the high veritage value sites can only be reduced to medium adverse by the reduction in height of all the buildings under the option three mitigation measures.”

The four landscapes in question are Port Meadow itself, St Barnabas Church, the view of the famous “screaming spires” of the university and the River Thames and towpath.

The three options for mitigation are (1) use brick cladding and trees – cost £6 million; (2) flatten the roofs with cladding and trees – £11 million; and (3) remove a floor off each of the buildings – cost £12 million.

The campaign says that both the university and the council are being skinflints and want the cheapest option. As the campaigners say: “They want to minimise the embarrassment of their negligence in building the Port Meadow blocks, and also the cost and incnvenience.”

In 2011 the University said: “It has been concluded that the development will not be visible from the majority of Port Meadow.” A Mr Murray Hancock, a planning functionary at the Council, said: “It gives rise to some impacts but these are not significant.”

The campaign says there are various things people can do:

(1) Write to your city councillor.(2) Email the City Council consultation at planning@oxford.gov.uk by the 19th December using the ref 11/02881/FUL telling them why option 3 is acceptable.(3) Go to the meeting held at 7:30PM on the 4th of December 2014 at St Barnabas Church, Cardigan Street, Jericho

I GET a lovely leaflet from those lovely people who opposed the Port Meadow development. You can email them at saveportmeadow@gmail.com, although I’m not sure if the lasses and lads are aware that Google on gmail monitors every email in and out.

There are some fab quotes on the leaflet. Colin Cook, a Labour councillor, describes the whole thing as “a storm in a teacup”. City council leader Bob Price says: “It is difficult to see precisely what is getting people so exercised.” Planning minister Nick Boles, MP, says: “A disgrace… one of the worst designs I’ve seen in the last 10 years.”

Now there is damage that needs to be undone, although some damage in our opinion at Volesoftis terminal. Although by nature of a leftish stance, we will never vote for our councillor Colin Cook ever again, despite his lovely cycle clips. We are even considering not voting for lovely Susanna Pressel, even though she is slightly leftish too. We at Volesoft think the Labour controlled Oxford City Council needs some Ex-Lax… ♦

MY SOURCES here in Oxford, and they are highly reliable sources, tell me that it’s not just diesel contamination people have to worry about.

As we reported here earlier, and subsequently followed up by the venerable Oxford Mail, diesel pollution is the name of the game in certain parts of this City of the Screaming Squires.

A completely different source informed us, off the record, that Oxford City Council might well sue the university over the diesel spill.

But perhaps boffins from the university, not far from Port Meadow, should get out their Geiger counters and check out how much ticking there is at a spot nearby.

Radioactivity is nothing to fear – heck we come from Aberdeen, Scotland, where Geiger counters tick like there’s no tomorrow because of the granite bedrock. But there’s a time and a place for everything and it’s time to examine the place, not far from Port Meadow, we are reliably informed. ♣

Where there’s a will, there is a lay.
So starts this wee tale of Roger Dudman Way.

Head west from Domino’s, through the tunnel of love,
Be shaken, if not stirred by rattling freight trains above,
And, flanked by Mick’s Café and the YHA
See the new glory that’s called the Roger Dudman’s Way.
Mick’s Café has shut, I am sorry to say.
‘Twas the jewel in the crown of Roger Dudman’s Way.

As you beat your way towards pastures new,
You’ll see Oxford Station and, this is certainly true,
You’ll see five storeys hove into view.

Roger Dudman, the man who inspired the route
Was Lord Mayor of Oxford, and a leftie, to boot.
Of Dudman’s life we know little, it’s true,
But he held a grand post so was one of the few
To wear the great chain, and preceded by mace
Trouped through the town with consummate grace.

The latest Lord Mayor fell flat on his face,
For saying the word “sexy” that’s quite a disgrace.

And so we conclude this Dudman paeon,
To celebrate the daze of the Dudman aeon,
With hymns and raptures day by every day
To celebrate Mr Dudman and his now famous Way!